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Time for Obama Staff Resignations
Tweet Share on Facebook January 5, 2010 Comment (85)By Mary Kate Cary, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
It was 1982, and my dad's old friend from the Rockefeller days, Joe Canzeri, abruptly resigned from his job in the Reagan White House. "What did Mr. Canzeri do wrong, Dad?" I asked. "It doesn't matter," my father said. "He had to resign because that's what you do when you work for the president. You don't wait to get fired when you make a mistake—even a small one—you resign first. It's the right thing to do."
According to Joe Canzeri's 2004 obituary in the Washington Post, he resigned over an "ethics misstep," namely that he submitted a $700 receipt for reimbursement twice, and borrowed money to buy a home in Georgetown at favorable rates. He always maintained his innocence and was later exonerated. But Joe still resigned because in Washington, that's what you do to protect the president's reputation. If he had stayed on, the press would have started using terms like "scandal-ridden" and "allegations of corruption" about President Reagan and his staff. To stop the story, he took one for the team. There are plenty of Washingtonians on both sides of the aisle who have done the same thing, in every administration I can recall. It's part of being loyal.
But Sally Quinn writes in today's Post that the old take-one-for-the-team mentality is gone these days:
One of the first lessons any administration needs to learn is that somebody has to take the hit for whatever goes wrong. If another culprit is not identified, the president gets the blame. One incident after another in the past few months has shown that members of this administration would rather lay low and let Barack Obama be the target. This has got to stop.
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Clinton, Palin and the Enduring Sexism in American Politics
Tweet Share on Facebook January 5, 2010 Comment (11)By John A. Farrell, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Was it a good thing, or a bad thing, that Geraldine Ferraro's daughter, and many other young women, infuriated their feminist moms by voting for Barack Obama, instead of Hillary Clinton, in the Democratic primaries? Was it a promising sign, or an awful betrayal of sisterhood, when two of the nation's smartest conservative commentators—Peggy Noonan and Kathleen Parker—beat up on Sarah Palin as unqualified and dim?
I am inclined to think that both of these intriguing questions—served up by Anne Kornblut in her new book, Notes from the Cracked Ceiling—are evidence of a healthy democracy, where women employ independent judgment instead of blind loyalty to gender.
With women serving on the Supreme Court and many a state and federal bench; as secretary of state and in other cabinet slots; in governor's mansions and CEO suites and the top offices of our leading universities; and wielding gavels in the House and Senate, I'm in the camp of those who suspect that the shortage of female U.S. presidents is a cultural hangover, or a political aberration, that will be inevitably rectified—maybe as soon as 2012. But Kornblut (a former colleague) isn't as sure. As a top political reporter for the Washington Post, she witnessed the 2008 campaign up close, and came away stunned by the sexism in the cultural and political reaction to Clinton and Palin.
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Obama Must Not Appease Cheney With 'War on Terror'
Tweet Share on Facebook January 5, 2010 Comment (33)By Jamie Stiehm, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
President Obama will appease a furious former Vice President Dick Cheney today if if he utters three words in his remarks on the state of our national security and intelligence: "war on terror."
Don't do it—three words of free advice, Mr. President. That's ground you cannot give to your chief ideological enemy here at home. As we know from a simple yet loaded term like "9/11," language matters. Cheney once owned the struggle he calls the "war on terror," and he wishes to take it away from you.
Cheney's grimly determined to set in stone this appellation, which he and former President Bush invented and declared on an "invisible" enemy with "shadowy" networks days after Sept. 11, 2001. In a rousing address to Congress on the terrorist attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Bush asserted this "war on terror" unilaterally, and the nation hasn't been the same since. Not one member of Congress challenged this dark formulation, so spooked were we all by what 19 young Arab men did with boxcutters. Exactly one senator, Russell Feingold of Wisconsin, voted against the Patriot Act, which was not far behind.
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C-SPAN Demands Democrats Open Secret Health Reform Talks
Tweet Share on Facebook January 5, 2010 Comment (14)By Doug Heye, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
If there is one institution in Washington whose integrity is unquestioned, it is C-SPAN. The network calls it straight down the middle by not calling it at all, and is treated with the same respect by Democrats, Republicans, and independents that it treats the Democrats, Republicans, and independents who call in every morning. From gavel-to-gavel coverage of the House of Representatives and the United States Senate, uninterrupted coverage of important congressional hearings and airing of various political press conferences and seminars, C-SPAN provides an important service to every American voter—bringing your government to you and providing the sunshine open government necessitates.
Unfortunately, the network can cover only those congressional meetings held in the public. Voters hoping to follow the process of the House and Senate working out the differences of their respective healthcare reform bills are left in the dark. C-SPAN will not be covering the House-Senate conference on the legislation because there will not be any such conference. As reported by the Associated Press, Congressional Quarterly, USA Today, the Washington Post, and, not insignificantly, Peter Roff with U.S. News & World Report, House and Senate Democrats will negotiate the legislation in private, far away from the prying eyes of Capitol Hill Republicans and far away from prying cameras.
Enter C-SPAN.
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Democratic Leaders Plan Secret Health Reform Deliberations
Tweet Share on Facebook January 4, 2010 Comment (452)By Peter Roff, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Despite their claims to the contrary, the way that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid have handled the healthcare bill has been anything but transparent. And, if the left-wing blogosphere is to be believed, the two congressional leaders intend to keep the deliberations secret as they try to merge the House and Senate versions of the legislation into something that will pass both chambers.
The Talking Points Memo website reported Monday that Democrats in both the House and Senate are saying the process will likely follow the path of the House taking up the Senate-passed legislation, amending it and sending it back to the Senate, which will have to pass it again. "This process cuts out the Republicans," a House Democratic aide told TPM, indicating the congressional majority intended to make sure the Republican minority would "not have a motion to recommit opportunity."
It also, say those who are following the issue, allows Pelosi to avoid having to cut deals with problematic House Democrats like Michigan's Bart Stupak, who has promised to do what he can to scuttle the final bill if it provides for federal funding of abortions.
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Freeing More Guantanamo Detainees Plays Into Al Qaeda's Hands
Tweet Share on Facebook January 4, 2010 Comment (12)By Bonnie Erbe, Thomas Jefferson Street blog
Given what came out this past weekend about Guantanamo prisoners released by the Bush administration, I see no reason to release any more Guantanamo detainees who hail from or who have spent time in terrorist-training nations. President Obama's chief counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, made the rounds of the political Sunday talk shows and according to the Washington Post, called Guantanamo Bay "a propaganda tool for al Qaeda" and added that "532 Guantanamo detainees had been released by the Bush administration, including some who have subsequently appeared as senior officials in the al Qaeda organization in Yemen. He said Obama has released 42, including seven Yemenis sent home."
